1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor, and more particularly, to a multilayer ceramic capacitor having excellent capacitance, low equivalent series inductance (ESL), and excellent strength in adhesion to a circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, electronic components using a ceramic material, such as a capacitor, an inductor, a piezoelectric element, a varistor, or a thermistor, or the like, include a ceramic body made of a ceramic material, internal electrodes formed within the ceramic body, and external electrodes mounted on surfaces of the ceramic body so as to be connected to the internal electrodes.
Among ceramic electronic components, a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) includes a plurality of laminated dielectric layers, internal electrodes disposed to face each other, in which each pair of internal electrodes has one of the dielectric layers disposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor provides the advantages of compactness, high capacitance, and ease of mounting, so it is therefore used extensively in mobile communications devices such as notebook computers, personal digital assistances (PDAs), and cellular phones.
Recently, as electronic products have been miniaturized and multi-functionalized, chip components have also tended to have been miniaturized and multi-functionalized. Accordingly, there is a need to miniaturize the multilayer ceramic capacitor and increase the capacitance thereof.
In addition, the multilayer ceramic capacitor has been usefully used as a bypass capacitor disposed in a large scale integration (LSI) power supply circuit. The multilayer ceramic capacity needs to have the capability to effectively remove high frequency noise in order to serve as a bypass capacitor. This demand has been further increased in accordance with the trend toward electronic devices having high frequencies. The multilayer ceramic capacitor used as the bypass capacitor may be electrically connected to a mounting pad on a circuit board through soldering, and the mounting pad may be connected to other external circuits through wiring patterns on, or conductive vias in, the circuit board.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor has equivalent series resistance (ESR) and equivalent series inductance (ESL) components in addition to a capacitance component. These ESR and ESL components may hinder a function of the bypass capacitor. Particularly, ESL increases capacitor inductance at high frequencies to thereby hinder high frequency noise removal characteristics.